Wine cooler for ageing?

[bathman]

With my first batch of red wine just finishing up MLF I am belatedly thinking about how I am going to store my wine at a consistent, cool temperature for ageing - both for my mini-tanks/demi-johns and for when I eventual bottle.

Unfortunately I don't have a cellar, instead I intend to use some space in my workshop. The room measures ~2m x ~5m it is a single skin (6 inch) stone construction, which means it is subject to big temperature fluctuations, getting very hot in the summer and very cold in the winter.

Theoretically I could construct a very small insulated wine room, probably no bigger than 1m x 2m, with a small AC unit, which would give me enough room to keep several small wine tanks/DJs and maybe up to 300 bottles of wine. However, probably not feasible in the short term as I'm in the middle of renovating the rest of the house.

I am wondering if some sort of fridge or wine cooler would be suitable. If I went for a fridge I would probably have to rig it up to a temperature controller to turn it on/off at the mains to avoid it getting too cold, and also use it in conjunction with some sort of heat source (heat mats?) if it started getting too cold due to the external temperature. If I went for a wine cooler then it would be able to maintain the correct temperature by itself.

Are fridges/wine coolers suitable for long term ageing of wine in vessels/bottles? Any humidity issues or other problems I'm not thinking of? Some sort of cooler would be a much quicker solution than constructing something. The added benefit of a cooler (or at least a fridge) is I could take it down to a temperature that would allow cold stabilisation to take place.

In the very short term I will probably rig up a temporary box with some spare insulation panels I've got, and use some heat mats to avoid it getting too cold.

Any thoughts on this from anyone who may have had experience with coolers? Any other options or considerations that I haven't thought about?

 

[meadmaker1]

Sounds like youve thought this through and just need help making up your mind .
The most expensive and most labor intensive option is usually favored here.
I recommend looking to the future, and consider developing on your progress and not having to redo or undo anything.
For instance a frig. Would serve you as a cold crash cooler and cold beverage unit after builing your volume storage area that you know you really want.

 

[NorCal]

I had the same problem. This was one of my first projects.

https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/cold-box-work-table-construction.45816/

 

[bathman]

I had the same problem. This was one of my first projects.

https://www.winemakingtalk.com/threads/cold-box-work-table-construction.45816/

Really interesting thread there, I hadn't thought about using full size doors, that definitely makes best use of a small space. Similar size to what I'm thinking about too, although that will be a longer term solution for me.

I'm thinking I will go for a double door bottle chiller as the short term solution, as I can fit all of my current wine in there, do cold stabilisation and put some heat mats in for when it gets really cold. And it will probably still come in useful for cold stabilisation when I get my longer term solution in plate

 

[bathman]

So in the end as a medium term solution I decided to go for a dedicated wine cooler - that way I can hold the wine at 12C (your 54F) without having to mess about with heat mats and temperature controllers. It is big enough to hold my two vessels for aging this year and also have space for bottles (it holds a max of 264 bottles). If/when I have time to make a small cooled wine room (and it will be very small!) I can still continue to use the wine cooler for aging bottles.

The only thing I will have to think about is cold stabilisation - the cooler only goes down to 5C (your 41F) and not sure if that will be sufficient for cold stabilisation. So may have to just wait till we have some icy weather later in the winter.

The wine cooler I ended up going with is here:

https://winestoragecompany.co.uk/produkt.php?pid=3815